I don't think I've ever seen the NASCAR tracks so lovingly made and so pretty to look at. Most of the time in EA's NASCAR games, I would skip the National Anthem and Jet flyover cut scenes. With this game, I find myself watching them, just to admire the track detail. The asphalt on the road is beautifully textured, well beyond what was absolutely necessary, and lighting and shadow affects are everywhere. The bottom line is that this is a drop-dead gorgeous rendition of NASCAR.

During gameplay, the car's interior will bounce around you as you hit bumps in the pavement, and the rear view mirror will vibrate. Decent-looking gloved hands will turn the wheel--not the crudely rendered polygon-arms that we've seen in the past. And in a marked improvement over Papyrus' sims, the various function-key pop-up panels (F2=Standings, F3=Lap Times, F4=Tire status, etc.) are stackable, all the way up the right side of the screen. You can tap the keys in whichever order you like to stack exactly the information you want. No more having to fumble with function keys to jump from screen to screen.

Sound

The sounds are convincingly real and spatially oriented. You'll hear that car bearing down on you from behind before you think to check out your mirror. The spotter chatters constantly, telling you which car is to your left (low) or right (high), and when you're clear. Your crew chief will let you know if your oil and water temperatures are getting too hot--for example, if you've put too much grille tape on the front, he'll recommend you pit and get some removed to get more air into the engine.

Tire squeal, an important part of driving feedback, is not an annoying nails-on-chalkboard squeal, but a low-frequency "rubbing" sound. It can be a little too difficult to hear, which is my only complaint. I've had to turn down the volume on engine noises in order to hear that most important audio cue of car control.

EA Trax are standard fare in EA Sports games, so expect to get some headbanging hard rock or metal (I can never tell which) while you look at menu screens. Thankfully, EA left it out of driving mode, where it would be nothing but a nuisance.

Extras

Full race replays help round out the package. You can automatically save your entire race replay to your hard drive, and examine it later in EA's Replay Studio. You can view any camera angle from any car's perspective, save bookmarks, save clips from it, etc. Basically everything Papyrus gave us is here now--finally! You can also press "R" at any time while driving to see a quick instant replay of the last several seconds.

I would like to have seen a bigger, more Papyrus-like manual, with guides for each track and more detailed car setup information. It was always nice to get an education on the sport as well as just getting to drive. But EA only gives you a 10-page manual. To their credit, the manual includes a comprehensive key map and a several page setup "fix it" guide with suggestions for setting changes based upon what the car is doing. I understand that it's expensive to print big manuals, but I did optimistically hope for a nice fat .PDF inside the game for some relaxing after-race reading. Alas, it was not to be. However, EA did enlist the help of NASCAR driver Ryan Newman to both playtest the game throughout its development and provide feedback on how best to set up the car. This is all incorporated into a Garage 101 document on the EA Sports' NASCAR website. I hope that we will see some telemetry tutorials there soon, as well.

The Verdict

It's been six years in coming, but EA has finally delivered the goods. They rewrote their physics engine, spent extra long months tweaking and tuning and testing after the console versions shipped. The extra time has paid off handsomely. EA's NASCAR SimRacing has earned its name, and in doing so, it has finally compelled me to free up the space on my hard drive that Papryus had occupied through years of EA's previous attempts to close the gap. EA has not only closed that gap, but they have exceeded Papyrus' efforts in many significant ways, such as the excellent physics model, featuring "drivable oversteer," third-party extensibility, and just about every option imaginable.

EA should be applauded for not throwing PC versions of the console titles at us, for understanding who the target PC racing simulation customer is, and going the extra mile to make us happy. It's not a perfect game. The glitches in the management of the NASCAR rules will have to get patched up. But there are things you can patch and things you cannot. You cannot patch a fundamentally flawed physics model to suddenly become a gem, but you can patch up a few rules fixes. I expect them to do the latter.

This is no arcade game, even with the numerous optional driving aids. But neither is it unapproachable for someone who wants to get a taste of realistic NASCAR Racing. The hardcore virtual racers who like any highly realistic sim should consider this a mandatory purchase, and anyone else interested in NASCAR should definitely take a hard look.